Box, shutter featured in art auction

August 24, 2009

Auction house Christie’s in New York said a London artist’s bronze sculpture of a cardboard box is expected to fetch $30,000 when it goes on sale next month.

The auctioneers said Brillo 5, a cardboard box created by artist Gavin Turk, is expected to sell for at least $30,000 during the postwar and contemporary art sale Sept. 23, the New York Post reported Monday.

Christie’s described the piece as an ironic and ambiguous work that is essentially a copy of a cardboard box.

The sale also features a discarded shutter repainted by New York conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner in 1961. Christie’s said the object is expected to sell for between $20,000 and $30,000.

It is not quite a found object in that I stripped it and painted it, Weiner, 67, said of the untitled piece. I just used the shutter as a support structure rather than stretched canvas.

At the time, it was the highest form of abstraction I could reach, he said.